Last week, the Religion & Public Life Project published "A Portrait of Jewish Americans" which opened with this sentence, "American Jews overwhelmingly say they are proud to be Jewish and have a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people." You need to scroll down to find out that 42% say "having a good sense of humor" is "essential to their Jewish identity."

At this point I was not only thinking but also saying, "Vo den?"

But uh-oh, screw me with my multiple spirituality disorder: "60% of U.S. Jews say a person cannot be Jewish if he or she believes Jesus was the messiah." Imagine my relief to see this quote from Arnold Eisen, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary in the Telegraph's article, "Mashup: Jewish leaders respond to Pew":

"They [survey respondents] want a new notion of what being Jewish is -- we haven't really responded to that...We need to have options...Stop trying to make Judaism only about religion. There are substantive ways to be a Jew beyond religion."